ROGER SIMON INTERVIEWS MIKE POMPEO:
Roger Simon: Mr. Secretary, let’s begin with your new PAC. You named it CAVPAC in honor of the cavalry, I imagined, coming to rescue America …and it needs it. The PAC’s filled with the best intentions—championing American values and so forth. But let me ask you a difficult question. Our schools are teaching our kids critical race theory from kindergarten. Our colleges have turned into Marxist indoctrination camps with entertainment and the mainstream media doing much the same, all of this going on for some time. Is it already too late? What can CAVPAC do to turn this around?
Secretary Pompeo: No, it’s not remotely too late. The cavalry from my young days when I was a young officer sounded the alarm. I think we were a little late in getting that done, but I’m happy now to be out working on that project. It’s not too late. This Republic is strong. Your point’s well taken, and I’ve been asked this before. But I worked on problems all around the world for the past four years, China foremost amongst them. There’s no greater threat to the United States than the challenges within the Marxist socialist ideology of the progressive left.
You talked about the theories that are being foisted upon kids as young as kindergarten, saying that our American founding was racist. Those are the challenges of our times. We can get it back. Americans know how to do this. And it will be in those places—our schools, churches, our faith-based institutions. Those will be the places that the Republic will get its foothold again. And we need to make sure that we have leaders at every level working to do just that.
That’s why I’m going to be out traveling. I’ve already done it for two months, traveling the country, talking about this very value set, and then finding people who are prepared to stand up. Whether that’s at a board of trustees meeting for the board of Regents in your state or at the PTA meeting or your city council, those are the places where we get to reject ideology and put America back on its founding ideas that have made this most exceptional nation in history. I am confident that the decline is a choice and that Americans are going to choose not to allow that to happen.
Roger Simon: Well, that’s optimistic and I hope you’re right. But there’s a Catch-22 in this for some readers of the Epoch Times—right, center-right, libertarians—in other words, people who might well be your constituents. You were head of both the State Department and the CIA, both of which, among other government institutions, today are not too popular with this very group. In fact, it was reported last night by Tucker Carlson and also by Revolver Media, I believe, that the FBI, therefore the Department of Justice, was heavily involved with instigating, in various ways, the Jan. 6 events. Would CAVPAC fight against this as you were once a leader of those institutions?
Secretary Pompeo: Well, of course, it’s totally inappropriate for the Department of Justice to have done that, if that’s in fact what took place. I fought back against the bureaucracy inside the State Department. It causes enormous problems when you have unelected officials who have their own view of the world and work to undermine an administration and president that was duly elected [in the] constitutional way. I actually am proud of the work that the State Department did under my leadership because we prevented much of the malfeasance that had taken place there. And it’s a big organization.
There’s always going to be bad actors, but we made clear our expectations that everyone would do the right thing. I’ve seen this, I’ve seen some of the FBI leadership. I didn’t run that organization. I’ve seen some of that. I’ve seen some of that leadership that appears to have lost its way. They should be held accountable for that. And it is absolutely the case to get back to good.
And every government employee [should] act in the way that is consistent with our constitutional obligations. And when there is a duly elected president of the United States, they should be the ones driving, whether that’s intelligence, collections, and operations at the CIA or foreign policy and diplomatic policy at the State Department. There’s one commander-in-chief designated duly by article two of our Constitution, and I’m going to fight mercilessly to make sure that that happens.
Exactly — even with the bottomless nature of the Deep State, the buck has to stop with President Klain.